As a door opening and closing apparatus that moves a door to open and close with respect to a vehicle body, one that has a rail module is conventionally known. The rail module includes a guide rail, a drive device, and a supporting member.
The guide rail extends along the front-and-rear direction and its front end portion is curved. The drive device is mounted on one side portion of the guide rail via a bracket. The drive device includes a motor that is a driving source and a rotating drum that is rotatable forward and backward by the drive of the motor. On the rotating drum, an opening cable and a closing cable are wound around after the respective one end portions thereof are connected. The rotating drum, when rotating in one direction, takes up the closing cable while letting out the opening cable. Meanwhile, when rotating in the other direction, the rotating drum takes up the opening cable while letting out the closing cable.
The opening cable is hung on a first pulley arranged at a lower portion of the front end portion of the guide rail, and the closing cable is hung on a second pulley arranged at a lower portion of the rear end portion of the guide rail.
The supporting member is coupled to the other end portions of the opening cable and the closing cable. That is, the supporting member is coupled to the other end portion of the opening cable hung on the first pulley, and is coupled to the other end portion of the closing cable hung on the second pulley. The supporting member is movable along the extending direction of the guide rail by a driving force given by the drive device.
In such a door opening and closing apparatus, by making the supporting member support a door after mounting the rail module on a vehicle body and by making the supporting member move, the door can be moved to open and close with respect to the vehicle body (see Patent Literature 1, for example).